French additive manufacturing and advanced materials company Z3DLAB—known for its innovative titanium-ceramic 3D printing powder—recently announced a joint venture with Korean semi-conductor expert HS HI-TECH to launch an industrial digital additive manufacturing center in Korea. Called Z3DFAB, the new additive manufacturing center will combine Z3DLAB and HS HI-TECH’s expertise and industrial manufacturing resources.

As a digital additive manufacturing center, Z3DFAB will offer clients a full 3D printing service, and will cater to a wide range of clients, including from the medical, automotive, aeronautic, and nuclear industries. The new center, which is based in the Dongtan-Myeon region of South Korea, will operate from a 10,000 square meter facility, itself worth roughly $2.5 million.

Additionally, with a reported $10 million in investments to span over two years, Z3DFAB is hoping to establish itself as one of the leading additive manufacturing centers in Korea, and even the world.

As mentioned, the center will combine the expertise and specialities of both its founding companies, French Z3DLAB and Korean HS HI-TECH. The latter’s expertise, which is in semi-conductors, cleaning precision nozzles, and spin chuck of semi-conductor equipment, are a crucial part of what Z3DFAB will offer as a center. That is, the new AM center is aiming to become “a world standard” in additive manufacturing production, as well as in the cleaning and post-processing of industrial 3D printed parts.

According to a press release, the new Z3DFAB center will be prepared for medical additive manufacturing by the first semester of 2017—it has already received ISO 13485 certification and its specific cleaning process is ready for medical AM. It is also set to receive all of the top additive manufacturing certifications by the end of 2017.

Both companies offered comments about the new additive manufacturing center. Mr. Djemai Madjid of Z3DLab said: “Combining semi-conductors, nano scale environment, the state of art in cleaning procedure and the strict quality control is what we couldn’t dream better for creating the best digital manufacturing of the 21st century.”

Mr. Kim Seong Soo, CEO of HS HI-TECH, added: “The Additive Manufacturing and Advanced materials is the new paradigm for the 21st century manufacturing, the understanding of all value chain and market structuration is key in making a world class digital manufacturing center.”

While the Z3DFAB center is not quite up and running yet, both Z2DLAB and HS HI-TECH seem committed to making their joint venture a success within the AM world. We can imagine we’ll be hearing more about Z3DFAB in the future.